California's School for the Deaf (CSD) Eagles football team is the focus of a Sports Illustrated (SI) "Underdogs" video series which can be viewed at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/specials/underdogs/episode-6.html.

SI covered CSD's third game of the season and have challenged the players and their supporters to vote their story as the most inspirational from all nominees. Voting was launched Tuesday, October 23rd and ends at midnight on November 16th. The school with the most votes will receive $25,000 and a trip to New York to attend the Sports Illustrated Sportsman and Sportswoman of the year award ceremony. CSD students have created a video to demonstrate how the voting works at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ-BuUTsibY.

Quarterback, Carlos Lopes, was interviewed about his experience playing for the Eagles after a highly successful junior year. He finished 2011 with 1423 yards passing along with 19 touchdowns and only two interceptions. Lopes has kept his team scoring at a reliable flip in 2012. The Eagles scored at least 27 points in their first three wins of the season. Again, this year, the Eagles are in another highly successful year with 8 wins and 1 loss.

Another football player interviewed is Jacy Pedersen-Dike, 6'3" linebacker, who made an amazing comeback after one year hiatus from health issues, blood clots in his lungs. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he continued to attend the games and motivated his teammates from the sidelines. This year he has a strong playing connection as a linebacker with the team's quarterback, Carlos Lopes.

CSD Athletic Director Kevin Kovacs was also interviewed about how he helped oversee the transformation of CSD's sports program. Along with the football team's significant improvement over the past four years, CSD also produced several incredible athletes including Michael Lizarraga, a Division I basketball player who played four years at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and was a three-sports star at CSD before graduating in 2007.

The link to vote is www.si.com/underdogs or www.si.com/underdogs/vote.html to go directly to the voting page.